


it turns out you can use hammers to both create and destroy homes

by pocketpauling



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom
Genre: M/M, fuck it im tagging gordon who cares theres 2 ppl in this whole fic what am i supposed to do., sodacule rights baby, xen 98 is a fun au! freem i love ur au.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26676508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketpauling/pseuds/pocketpauling
Summary: kiss a man with a boyfriend. then kiss that man's boyfriend. call that a polycule. mwah.
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta/Darnold/Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74





	it turns out you can use hammers to both create and destroy homes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VoidLeviathan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidLeviathan/gifts).



it is a panic, and it starts to build the moment he finds his way back home from work, because he’s made a mistake. the worst kind, the type that ruins lives. relationships. entire worlds, and he did it without a second thought - but it’s caught up to him, now. the second thoughts he should have had haunt him well into the next day, and the next, and the next.

low lights after closing, fun and games, it’s all fun and games, always - until someone gets hurt, and he’s hurt someone, this time. sledgehammer to the side of a wall. drywall on the floor. he’s a homewrecker - that’s the term, right? that’s what he is.

it is a fog in his mind, stains every sentence that he speaks. every bit of eye contact in the arcade is a trial, even as tommy speaks to him like nothing’s gone wrong, but gordon knows something has.

and it’s worse being treated like a friend, after what he’s done, and it’s why he’s had to hand him every excuse he can to avoid him. both of them. avoid their friendly conversation and healthy competitions, their jokes and their far-too-friendly touchy-ness. he’ll miss it, but he has to get some distance if he’s going to deal with this. it’s easier to put the friendship behind him before he tells tommy he’s sorry for being the worst person to ever walk the earth.

it is a fear, deep and unwavering. it is two days of just trying to tell if tommy knows. it’s a week of hiding in the back rooms to steel his nerves to ask, apologize, finally know if tommy hates him as much as he hates himself, if darnold even told him, which - at this point, by how they’re acting, he might not have.

which is... worse? in a way? it means it falls to gordon to break the news, because, even if darnold is fine with it, gordon can’t sleep at night if he’s got to keep this a secret.

it is an anxiety, making him nearly too sick to eat lunch. it’s an anxiety made worse by tommy’s proximity, standing around idly waiting for gordon to clean up and head out with him - something that makes gordon even more ill. he’s too nice, and gordon is going to ruin that. he’s going to ruin everything. 

he’s going to ruin it now. he’s decided he’s going to ruin it in that moment, in that break room. he’s opened his mouth already, and the apologies are already spilling out, strings of explanations. but not excuses, he knows nothing can ever excuse what he did, but he’s begging, hoping beyond hope that tommy won’t blame darnold for what happened - it’s _his_ fault, and he’ll say it until his death. it’s all his fault.

and tommy kisses him, then, soft and insistent - and the words stop. they fizzle out in his throat. he makes a sound, something embarrassingly like a squeak in the back of his throat - and tommy _laughs_ at him. he laughs and pulls back and looks at him like he’s an idiot, but in the softest way imaginable. it feels more like a compliment than an insult.

gordon asks him, immediately, what he’s doing, and tommy answers. 

he says a lot of things, starting with “shut up,” which turns into “i already knew.” he tells him they’ve been trying to ask him, trying to tell him, trying their hardest to pull him along with them into something gordon’s never really thought about before, but can’t stop thinking about now.

and it is a moment of confusion, and then surprised clarity, and anxious laughter bubbling up out of his chest, pulling tommy down into another kiss before he can stop himself. tommy doesn’t stop him, either.


End file.
